ABSTRACT
How a culture imagines the body is one of its most fundamental and revealing elements; and how individuals imagine their own bodies relates to their identity at the most profound level.1 Theories of the body, whether explicit or implicit, may assume a sharp division between the body and the mind, or they may articulate a profound interconnection between what is mental, physical and spiritual. Among the issues which cluster around concepts of the body are questions of individuation, how we define the boundaries of a person and his or her bonds with other people, living or dead; the causal links between illness or other kinds of physical harm and psychic, emotional or spiritual powers; and the nature of what we might call a ‘person’ and his or her relation with the divine.
